Artist of the Week: William Elliott Whitmore

Hometown: Lee County, Iowa
Album: Animals in the Dark
For Fans Of: Tom Waits, Woody Guthrie, Reverend Gary Davis

William Elliott Whitmore needed a change of pace. After concluding his Southern Records trilogy, a series of albums steeped in country-folk and Delta blues variants, through which the musician and humble horse-farmer worked through his grief over the death of his parents, he retreated home to his cabin in Iowa to listen to the coyotes howl. He didn't know if he had anything left to say; his songwriting had been cathartic, but the despair he once felt was turning to disgust. With deep roots in the punk rock community, he'd spent years touring with bands whose audiences had few reference points for music caked in Mississippi River mud, and after signing to Anti- Records (home to musical outlaws like Merle Haggard and Tom Waits) he knew he wouldn’t make a punk rock album, exactly-- but he was ready to turn his sites outward, and he already knew who was in his crosshairs.

“I wanted this record to come out last year before the election,” he says of his fourth full-length release, Animals in the Dark, released in February. “The first song is written about George [W.] Bush, but, really, it’s about declaring mutiny on the ship. How did this fucking clown get into office and start running this country? And here he is making these decisions that are killing millions of people and impoverishing millions of others. That came to me—the phrase 'Animals in the Dark'—to describe the people in this world that control your destiny without you knowing it. Or the forces behind the forces—meaning the Tom Delays and George Bushes and Tony Blairs and Dick Cheneys. But it could apply to anyone, like your crummy boss at work. I don’t know how anyone could use power correctly. Even Mr. Obama, I wish him good luck, because he inherited a hell of a mess—but I’m allergic to all politicians."

"But," Whitmore adds, "I didn't want to just complain for 40 minutes, either." Hardly a polemic, Animals in the Dark is more of an indictment of human nature than a point-by-point critique of American politics. From the marching band snare and sing-along calls to calls to throw ineffective leaders into a watery grave of “Mutiny” to the indictments of abusive and bullying cops “Johnny Law,” Whitmore sustains a mood of outrage but never names names. Instead, the villains of “Old Devils” belong to a timeless continuum stretching from the first man to pick up a club to beat down his neighbor to the elected official that betrays the trust invested in him. Eventually, despite the recognition that human beings do some pretty terrible things to each other, he emerges with the realization that it’s up to him to not let the bastards get him down.

“It’s my little attempt at a protest record, and I don’t even know if it works or not,” he says. “It was a challenge as a writer, and I felt compelled to do it. I wanted to make people think and also say that there is beauty in the world, and if you can dance your little jig and paint a picture and hug your girlfriend, that’s how we beat them. That’s the only way. Not by declaring war on everyone but making a little beauty. That’s how we win.”
 
“That sounds like Jerry Springer,” he adds, laughing, “but I feel like people forget sometimes.”

Listen to William Elliott Whitmore's "Mutiny" from Animals in the Dark:
 


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